Renault's Twizy: you're better off on a bicycle

The Renault Twizy has all the cons but none of the pros of a bicycle, says
Neil Lyndon.

The Renault Twizy was to be delivered to the house of friends in London with whom I was staying for the night. We were out at dinner when the car was unloaded.

Excited chatter and laughter were resounding in the night air as we turned into my friends’ street. Mobile phone cameras were flashing. Few cars could draw such a throng. People who would not even notice a Ferrari were elbowing to get a better look inside this tiny, high-domed two-seater that makes a Smart car look like a lorry.

It helped the crowd nosing around that my Twizy had doors but no windows; cheaper versions have no sides at all. As it was so evidently unsafe to park on the street, my friends asked the vicar of the church opposite to open his gated car park. I then had to insert my large body into the midget Twizy through its scissor door and figure out how to get it going, which made everyone fall about. The stages of start-up for this all-electric vehicle are obvious, as is the push-button transmission selector on the dashboard that simply offers D for a single-speed drive, N for neutral and R for reverse. But it took me about three minutes to wangle the parking-brake free, during which one of the audience declared that this show was better than the movies.

It’s fair to say, then, that life with a Twizy is one hassle after another – as it proved the next day when I took it out on the streets of London.

I had asked to borrow it while I was in London for the Olympics, thinking that such a tiny quadricycle, with a top range of 60 miles and a recharge time of three and a half hours, would be ideal for negotiating the clogged city streets. Wrong. Its makers describe the Twizy as being “unlike anything else on the road” but, to my mind, it combines all the most troublesome aspects of car, motorbike and bicycle.

Its four wheels outside its body mean that you may not drive in the bus lane. Those wide-set wheels also prevent you from threading through lines of stationary cars like a two-wheeler. The Twizy is so tiny that three could probably fit into a standard parking bay, but that’s not allowed either: each Twizy incurs a normal car’s charge. Its rear-mounted electric motor produces zero carbon emissions, making it exempt from London Congestion Charging and road tax, but that’s true of a bicycle, too, and you would not be much more exposed to the elements on a bicycle than in the open-sided Twizy.

Nippy and manoeuvrable though it is, the Twizy was far slower on my trip to the Olympic Park than my massive BMW R1200 RT motorbike would have been. My bike would also have been more comfortable and warmer. The Twizy lacks any heater or radio; the R1200 RT has both. The bike easily negotiates sleeping policemen; the Twizy hits them full square, with an impact through the uncushioned tandem seats like a kick in the pants.

Bus passengers enjoyed staring down into the Twizy so it’s an incomparable platform for narcissism; but, as a form of transport, you might be better off on foot with an umbrella.